March 27, 2011

Two books which we were involved in arrived at the Museum last week, hot off the presses. Last Folio: Textures of Jewish Life in Slovakia, published by Indiana University Press in record time -- less than two months -- accompanies our newest exhibition, which opened this week. Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival, a wonderful cookbook by June Hersh and published by Ruder Finn, has been in the works for several years. I was privileged to write introductory pieces for both books. In reading them over this week in their published form, I was struck how, in such different projects, the theme of memory predominates. Although I wrote them more than 18 months apart, I was struck by their similarities. Here they are:

Photographic Memory

I believe that it is most fitting that this exhibition of
Yuri Dojc’s photographs should be inaugurated at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust – an
institution that is dedicated to remembering those who perished in the
Holocaust by celebrating their lives and exploring the legacy that they
left. Consequently, our narrative is
devoted not to how Jews were killed, but rather to how they lived. I can think of no better way to convey the
tragic fate of Slovakian Jews, or to commemorate their lives, than to present
these remarkable images. Yuri Dojc has
focused his camera-eye with exquisite care, offering us evidence of lives lived
that evokes a heartrending history.

Following the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in 1939, the
independent state of Slovakia was established.
Closely allied with Nazi Germany and adopting its anti-Jewish policies,
Slovakia was the very first country outside of Germany to deport its Jews. The first transport left on March 26, 1942,
a trainload of nearly 1000 young women.
There followed a succession of trains, nearly all to Auschwitz, which
emptied Slovakia of almost three-quarters of its Jewish population within six
months. Among those who were taken were
the boys who attended a school in Bardejov.
I cannot look at Yuri Dojc’s photographs of the abandoned books from
that school without imagining the people who left them behind. My mind’s eye can see these boys closing and
kissing their sacred texts and placing them down for the last time before they
left forever. The photographs of these
books, whose words once conjured worlds, show them as if they have turned to
stone, frozen in the available light, petrified by the passing of time. There is no question that they have a certain
power over us, and it is not simply their undeniable beauty.

While we have no way of knowing for sure, we can surmise
that the last memories of the poor souls, who were torn from their lives by
Slovak police and paramilitary, were populated with images of the kind that
Dojc has captured – people, places, and things – the basic elements of life
distilled. In the bleak monotone of the
cattle car and the sickening fear that engulfed them, one can imagine that they
found comfort in calling upon such images of normal life. Indeed, our memories can produce vivid
pictures from our past – like photo albums -- that can link by reflection to
other times.

It should come as no surprise that when we think or talk
about memory, we often resort to photographic metaphors. After all, our memories are, for the most
part, delivered to us as images that play in our minds. Indeed, psychologists have tied certain
memory phenomena explicitly to photography.
Consider eidetic or “photographic memory,” which describes the
phenomenon of total visual recall, or “flashbulb memory,” which refers to vivid
recollections of particularly meaningful experienced events (we all remember where
we were on 9/11). It is believed that,
under certain circumstances -- often those associated with traumatic events --
memories can be fixed into a vivid photographic permanence.

In the context of the
trauma of the Holocaust, Dojc has delivered hauntingly beautiful images --
jewel-like tokens -- that link us by imagination to a lost world and time. Somehow in looking at them, we can “remember”
all they represent. Our uniquely human capacity
for empathy and understanding is triggered, and we are transported inward to a
world that is animated by our collective memories. As we look at these images of all that
remained, we remember all that was lost.

Preface

There is no doubt that
memories of food and the social context of food -- preparing it and partaking
of it-- are among the most potent that humans have. One need not read Proust to understand the capacity
for food to unlock powerful memories and to transport us through time. Whatever explanation we seek – brain
chemistry or something less clinical -- we have all experienced how an aroma or
a particular flavor can take us to another place. This meaningful and warmly written book -- Recipes Remembered -- is perfect proof
of this phenomenon. Here we see how individuals
whose lives were disrupted or torn apart by the events of World War II and the
Holocaust retain intense memories of the food they enjoyed in happier times. It is as if food were the grain of sand
around which pearls of memory were formed, enduring as tokens of a lost world
and time.

We are so very pleased
that June Hersh approached us with the proposal to write this book, and we were
eager to cooperate in any way we could. Of
course, June deserves all of the credit for the delicious and diligent work
that is reflected here, but I would like to think that her experience in our
Museum inspired her to approach the complex and tragic history of the Holocaust
through the individual stories of those who lived it. Indeed, our visitors encounter the messages
of our Museum through the personal narratives of the people who were lost and of
those who survived to build new lives.
Rather than having an impersonal voice guide our visitors through our Museum,
they are led from one personal story to another. They relate to the history we teach by
relating to the people who recount it.
In this same way, June has sought out engaging individuals, whose
stories and memories connect us to a different time and whose examples of
determination and survival are both deeply compelling and inspirational.

Of course, just as
recollections of food populate the prewar memories of the people whose stories
are told in these pages, memories of the absence of food often plague those who
experienced the hardships of war and persecution. In this sense, the memories—and
recipes—revealed in this book have a special significance. Not only do they link to happier times, but
they are, in a way, also antidotes to the poisonous periods of anguish and deprivation. One of the most powerful stories of our time remains
how those who endured the worst –- unceasing hatred, unpredictable violence,
unimaginable trauma—found the best in themselves and mustered the fortitude and
resolve to choose life and to rebuild their lives. Surely in this precarious and uniquely
personal journey, they were strengthened along the way by warm memories of the
kind that animate this book.

March 17, 2011

Excerpt from Document Reproduced in Justice Department Report on Mengele

Yesterday we held our 12th Annual Fanya Heller Conference for Educators on the subject, The Medical Profession and the Holocaust. The two hundred or so teachers had the opportunity not only to hear Fanya Heller discuss her own experience during the Holocaust, but also to listen to two scholars on the subject, Dr. William Meinecke from the USHMM and Dr. Michael Grodin from Boston University. We once again provided an opportunity for teachers in middle and high schools to have access to first-rate scholars on important subjects. This program, and other similar ones that we offer to educators from around the region, have earned us a well-deserved reputation for taking teachers seriously and providing them enriching experiences that they can pass on to their students.

As I was listening to one of the lectures, I reflected on the fact that today, March 16th, would have been Josef Mengele’s 100th birthday. As I have written before in this blog, I was actively engaged in the search for Mengele in 1985 and then in the investigation surrounding the identification of his remains. In 1985, we were looking for a 74 year old man – someone who by any actuarial standard would have had a good chance of still being alive at that time. Of course, we did not know that Mengele had already been dead for six years when the investigation went into high gear. He died just before his 68th birthday when he suffered a stroke while swimming in Bertioga, Brazil.

I suppose it was only natural to reflect on how we are on the cusp of new phase in our understanding of the Holocaust and in how we remember it. Soon there will be no one left who has any personal memory of what transpired. The world will rely on institutions like ours and symposia like the Fanya Heller Conference for Educators to preserve the memory and educate the public.